Alabama · Nonprofit
EAST LAKE INITIATIVE
EAST LAKE INITIATIVE (Alabama) receives grants from 23 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,325,492 to it, the largest being REGIONS FOUNDATION ($400,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.5M
- Funders on record
- 23
- Grants received
- $2.3M
- Net assets
- $2.6M
What East Lake Initiative does
Mission
Our mission is to offer family-centered coaching and foster thriving communities. Our core values are compassion, integrity, unity, and grit. Our mission and values guide everything we do, from how we design programs to how we have conversations. At eli thrive, we see every participant as resilient and capable of thriving. Our goal is to empower families toward self-sufficiency through kindness, compassion, and accountability. We recognize the difference between enabling and empowering. Enabling focuses on solving problems for someone, often creating dependence. Empowering, on the other hand, means equipping families with tools, confidence, and support so they can solve challenges themselves and build lasting independence. We believe that when families thrive, communities thrive. And we believe that as a staff and team, we must live out those values every day.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Housing - eli is helping to bring back pride in the neighborhood through house to home transformations. By acquiring distressed properties and renovating them to be quality homes eli is able to offer tenants safe and secure housing options. Residents enter into a mentoring relationship that prepares them to be homeowners. The mentorship includes financial counceling and other types of support as they move towards successful home ownership. Through eli's launch homeownership program families can move into an eli owned apartment for 12 months while they begin preparing for the road to homeownership.
$196,405 spent$115,417 earned by the program20% of program spendingWorkforce development - the changing face of employment paired with the uncertainty of school and childcare for the population we work with has been the catalyst for program expansion. In order to help our families explore career options, training opportunities, post-secondary education, and certifications for advancement to meet their employment goals; we hired a workforce development coach as a full-time staff member. This coach offers parents more intense workforce development help and also manages our hustle micro-grants, which offers parents $1000 in seed money for business start-ups.
$24,904 spentof which $24,597 as grants3% of program spendingThrive - this program utilizes our already existing holistic services of housing, tutoring, and the neighborhood garden in conjunction with our collaborative partner, serving you ministries, providing emergency services: food market and utility assistance as well as job skills training with a key new component being coaches to work with each family.
$748,708 spent77% of program spendingOther program services, not described on the e-filed return.
$278 spent$423 earned by the program0% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $970,295.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $1.3M to $1.9M (+40%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2020 17%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
89% of EAST LAKE INITIATIVE’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (39% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Pamela Bates
Executive director
Board chair
Ben Birdsong
Chairperson
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 7 funders, grant income rose $110k → $818k.
3 of 23 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of EAST LAKE INITIATIVE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 22 of 23 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
EAST LAKE INITIATIVE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
51% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund EAST LAKE INITIATIVE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 71% · 2019 51% · 2020 30% · 2021 35% · 2022 24% · 2023 49% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
36% of EAST LAKE INITIATIVE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 70% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
74% of EAST LAKE INITIATIVE's grant income comes from Alabama funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $228k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
EAST LAKE INITIATIVE holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 2,196 housing & shelter nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,196 housing & shelter nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like EAST LAKE INITIATIVE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Alabama
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
91%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for EAST LAKE INITIATIVE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds EAST LAKE INITIATIVE?
- EAST LAKE INITIATIVE (Alabama) receives grants from 23 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,325,492 to it, the largest being REGIONS FOUNDATION ($400,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does EAST LAKE INITIATIVE have?
- IRS filings report 23 organizations giving $2,325,492 in grants to EAST LAKE INITIATIVE, 16 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EAST LAKE INITIATIVE?
- REGIONS FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $400,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EAST LAKE INITIATIVE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Alabama. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds East Lake Initiative →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 23 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing